


And the World Spins Madly On

by alpha_hydra



Series: When Our Wounds Will Fade to Black [2]
Category: Red Hood: Lost Days, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, just in case the "part of an unfinished series" thing would be a deterrent for you, past canonical character death, you don't have to read what's going on in the first part of the series to get this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpha_hydra/pseuds/alpha_hydra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artemis has four Thanksgivings in the span of four days. She figures Wally would've been proud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the World Spins Madly On

**Author's Note:**

> Pssst I'm alive sorry about the other thing I'll get to it I swear here have some Artemis being sad don't kill me pls 
> 
> Title of work from a song by The Weepies [Watch/Listen here ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4sa2HoXpsE)

Artemis has four Thanksgivings in the span of four days. She figures he would’ve been proud. The first is as Tigress with the Team (on the Tuesday before because most everyone had plans with their family after that), where the team all sit in the yard with the tables in a weird star formation to accommodate all the members. It’s the biggest family-gathering Artemis has ever had that doesn’t end in broken bones. The worst is that Gar and Bart get into a good-natured argument on the merits of tofu early on in the meal.

Bart’s wearing his old Impulse uniform today, which he explains away because he got “some weird ketchup stains in places, don’t judge dude.” Artemis doesn’t by it, but she doesn’t have to stare at a yellow-and-red uniform for hours on end today and pretend to be strong about it, so she’s not complaining. 

“Definitely not crash, dude,” Bart is saying, and side-eyes Gar’s meal, which, to be fair, is a weirdly unpalatable gray-color. 

Gar says “I am _not_ eating meat,” and then, probably to illustrate his point, turns into a turkey and steals a couple of peas off of M’gann’s plate. 

“Point made,” Jaime says, and elbows Bart in the side when he opens his mouth to retort. 

It’s loud, and everything is delicious (even Gar’s greyish tofurkey that Artemis is teased into trying), and she spends most of the evening laughing with Zatanna, Rocket, and M’gann. Cassie asks about Robin at one point, and Kal spends the next half-hour fielding questions on Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing’s conspicuous absences. 

“They’re probably all in Gotham,” Artemis says. “Batman is weird about them patrolling the city alone if he’s not with them.”

“Nightwing too,” Gar adds, his smile slipping off his face for the first time that afternoon.

“Since when?” Bart asks, but he’s only half-listening to the conversation, attention quickly diverted by Blue Beetle’s surprised bark of laughter beside him.

So really, Artemis doesn’t feel bad for not answering, but she catches Kon, M’gann, and Kaldur’s eyes anyway and knows they’re all thinking the same thing. Most of the newer team members weren’t around when Batman lost his second little bird. 

“I’m sure they’re fine,” M’gann whispers to Artemis, lays her hand over hers and squeezes tightly. 

M’gann smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach the corners of her eyes, and Artemis can’t even drudge up the strength to smile back. Later, when the turkey has been devoured, they go around the tables and say what they’re most thankful for (it takes absolutely _forever_ , but it’s heartwarming, in a way). 

Artemis takes a deep breath. She wants to say “Nothing. What is there to be thankful for?” But instead, she says “I’m thankful that we’ve all made it to another Thanksgiving.”

Which has the same effect, really. The things she doesn’t say ring loudest in the air. Most of her dearest friends look away, which is fine by her because she’s started tearing up again, and has to take a few slow, calming breaths to make her head stop spinning. 

_Shhh, Artemis,_ M’gann’s voice says in her mind. _It’s okay_.

 _No it’s not,_ Artemis thinks back, but the ugly emptiness slides away again, for the moment. _Nothing’s okay._

_I know. But it will be._

_When?_

_Someday,_ M’gann says in her mind, and nobody thinks it, but Artemis still feels a response deep in her bones ( _I hope_ ).

The second Thanksgiving is in her regular clothes Thursday afternoon, wearing her favorite green sweater like armor when she enters Cheshire’s house. Lian takes a few halting, uneven steps forward before their mother wheels into the room and swoops her up. Red Arrow’s there, and Oliver Queen, and Sportsmaster is all but banned from the gathering.

“We invited Arsenal,” Jade says, turns her head just a fraction in Red Arrow’s direction. 

“But he’s in New York aggressively ignoring my calls,” Red Arrow finishes. He stalks into the kitchen petulantly, and all of them stare at his retreating back with mixed amounts of bemusement on their faces.

Lian giggles and mimes shooting finger guns at the door.

“How do you aggressively ignore something?” Mom asks.

Oliver smiles and pats her on the shoulder.

“You clearly have not spent enough time around either Roy Harper,” he says sagely.

Artemis smiles and follows Red Arrow into the kitchen. They have two roasted chickens and improvised Ga nuong that Oliver can’t seem to get enough of. Afterwards, they have small cups of Ca phe trung and pile into the living room, where Oliver and Jade spend an enjoyable hour teasing Roy and getting Lian to giggle.

Artemis mostly eats the foam off her coffee, and swishes the dregs around the bottom of her cup, an old habit she got from watching Mom do it years ago. When she looks up from her cup, everyone is laughing at something that Lian must have done, because Lian is grinning proudly and Roy is sprawled across the floor, miming a swoon. Artemis smirks and looks to her right, but she stops short, because there’s only an empty space beside her on the couch, a space Artemis didn’t even notice she’d been saving. 

She closes her eyes, tightens her grip on her teacup so much that it cracks and spills lukewarm coffee across the hardwood floors.

“I—I’m sorry, Jade,” she says, but when she tries to get up, both Mom and Oliver place a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine, Artemis,” Jade says. “We’ll get it.”

“Are you okay?” Oliver asks when Jade slips into the kitchen.

Artemis nods a little, smears a couple of droplets of coffee off the palm of her hand. Jade returns with a damp cloth and wipes up the mess quickly. She smiles down at Artemis, who suddenly feels like they’re treating her like a tiny glass trinket. She’s not going to shatter at sudden movements.

She hopes.

“I just can’t believe I was still expecting—” she starts, but her voice shakes in the middle, so she stops, clears her throat, and tries again. “I mean, it’s been—”

“Less than a year,” Roy says. “You’re allowed to get as angry, or as sad, or as _whatever_ for as long as you need to.”

Oliver says, “This grief can’t become your whole world, Artemis,” and she knows that at least half of that is directed back at Roy. Roy must too, with the way that he flinches. “There are still people here who love you.”

“Yes,” Mom adds. “Whatever you need from us, Artemis. We’re here for you.”

But there’s nothing she needs that they can give her, so Artemis stays quiet.

The third Thanksgiving is Friday night at the Allen residence, where there are mountains of food, a very pregnant Iris Allen, and brief sparks of laughter punctuated by heavy silence. Bart is there again, and he gives a tight grin to Artemis from across the dining room table. Mr. Allen stands up just before they start bringing in dessert and raises his wine glass.

“To those not present,” he says, and an immeasurable weight descends on the room as the family raise their glasses as one and murmur the phrase back. 

Artemis tilts her glass of sparkling apple juice and pretends to take a sip (she doesn’t know if her throat will work just yet).

“Figured you’d want a glass of the stronger stuff,” Bart says when enough chatter has built up around the table that they have some measure of privacy.

He indicates to her glass of juice, and Artemis looks back down at it and shrugs.

“Champagne gets me too—” weepy, emotional, miserable, _missing him_ “drunk.”

“So mode,” Bart says.

Something dark hangs behind his eyes, but he doesn’t mention it, and Artemis doesn’t ask about it. She figures they all have a reason to hold darkness inside themselves. 

The Allen family sends her home with about a metric ton of leftovers, but Artemis gives them all to a group of street kids on her way home. She doesn’t keep perishables around the house anymore, and she unplugged the fridge about a month back, since it was just eating up her electric bill. 

Her fourth Thanksgiving is four hours later, sitting cross-legged on the semi-frozen grass in front of a newly polished headstone. She shivers a little, but that’s all right; she hasn’t felt warmth in a long time. 

“Happy Thanksgiving, Wally,” she tells the headstone, and her voice doesn’t shake at all. “It was a really great haul this year. You might have even gotten full.”

Her fingers trace the sharp lines of a W, and for a second, everything is condensed to the cold feeling of stone against the pads of her fingers. The night disappears, the cold snapping at her ears and the end of her nose, the damp grass seeping into the material of her jeans. Nothing but the soft, polished stone, and her.

Then she opens her eyes, wipes at the thin tear tracks against her cheeks, and stands.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she says. 

She presses both hands flat against the headstone, thinks about what it would feel like to slip into the concrete. After a second, she takes a deep breath and gingerly pushes herself away. That would be pointless anyway. The headstone marks an empty grave, after all. 

She goes home and tries very hard to forget how empty her apartment feels.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) So this has been floating around my head since about August/September, but the writing of this story had many implications on The Other Thing and subsequent backstory, and I didn't want that to happen. But I figured, It's Thanksgiving, I haven't updated The Other Thing (Soon! Promise!), why not give the gift of terrible, crippling grief? /hides
> 
> 2) Links in fic are to probably Westernized versions of Vietnamese dishes. Sorry if they're no good! (if the links don't work/you are offended by my food choices let me know!)


End file.
